Staged building consents

Staging building work can be beneficial for both the owner and the Council.

For the owner, it means they can begin building work on the initial stages while completing design work for later stages. For the Council, processing a large-scale project in stages will help with application processing times. 

Stages of the proposed building work could be:

• a stage for each separate building as part of a project for constructing a group of buildings; or
• staging the construction or alteration of a building.

The following advice is only directed at applicants wishing to apply for a series of building consents to stage the construction or alteration of a building.

What's required when staging construction or alteration of a building

It's important you discuss staging construction or building alteration work with Council officers before lodging an application for the first stage. This will help you to create better quality applications that can be processed more quickly.

Staged building consents will be seen as cumulative so the plans and specifications at each stage will be required to include the building work approved in earlier stages.

Our approach

Proposed changes to the building work approved in an earlier stage, that has not been built yet, may be addressed as follow:

1. Option 1: as an amendment to the most recently issued stage; or
2. Option 2: as additional work to be consented through the application for a further stage.

The Council will issue the code compliance certificates once all stages of building work have been completed and approved. The applicant can apply for code compliance once the final inspection of the final stage is passed.

Note that the Council will assign a code compliance assessor to large-scale projects.

Getting more help

You can benefit from using the services of a case manager from our Partnership Approvals services.

Your case manager will efficiently work with all departments in the Council and the external agencies involved to ensure fast delivery of approvals for your project.

Getting agreement on the staging of your project prior to applying

1. Please apply for our building pre-application advice service(external link) using our online application form. 
2. A building consent officer will then assess your staging proposal. They may accept your staging proposal without further discussion required or request that a pre-application meeting take place to discuss your proposal further.
3. Matters that may be covered and confirmed in the pre-application meeting include:
   • establishing how many stages are proposed
   • establishing the extent of building work in each stage
   • agreement on what is a completed project
   • confirming that applications for the initial stages are to include concept plans and a design brief for the complete project
   • confirming that staged building consents are cumulative and the plans and specifications accompanying each application for a further stage detail the building work from earlier stages.
4. When the staging proposal is approved, you will be sent a staged building work approval letter. Submit this letter with the application for the first stage as evidence of approval for your staging proposal.